Class 08 with all the bells and whistles...

[96RAF]

The TT120 FB group has posted about a Class 08 modified by a fair amount of chopping to fit an 8-pin TXS decoder with power bank and as many lights as he could find hardware function outputs for.

I couldn’t find a direct link for it, but here is a screen grab of the loco.

[Rallymatt]

its an impressive effort! Can’t wait to see the ‘how to guide’ 😁

[Dodge1965]

Snap.. Looking forward to the vid and seeing his costs..

[david_watts1]

I find it funny that a modeller can get a sound and bluetooth decoder, plus lights and power bank in a 08 class but Hornby can't. thinking_face

[Fishmanoz]

Just to give some idea of the degree of fettling necessary to achieve this fit:

• internal width of the loco - 12.4mm max, narrower than the 8TXS is wide
• internal width of the cab - 18.4mm (or so) - will just fit a power bank across the cab but narrower than the 8TXS is long by some 10mm
• there is a significant block of metal on the chassis which protrudes into the cab. It's possibly only there as weight, can't see any other function
• the photo appears to show the power bank mounted in the bottom of the cab with the decoder on top (although colour of PCB??)

Now looking at what you might have to do from those dimensions and what I can see in the photo:

• you can mount the power bank across the bottom of the cab only if the chassis block is removed so there is no protrusion into the cab
• you can mount the 8TXS in the cab only if you can reduce its length by 10mm. The only way I can see to do this is to cut the PCB at the junction between the surface mount components and the WiFi aerial. You could then mount the aerial elsewhere after re-connecting (it would fit in the body or on top of the decoder, or in the cab)
• there is room to put a speaker and small enclosure in the body
• the neatest way to connect the decoder would be a 6-pin header into the existing 6-pin socket leaving 3 function wires to deal with (green, purple and blue common positive)

Now I could be wrong on this, and would be happy to be found so, the only info I have is dimensions (I've had the vernier calipers out to the loco) and the photo Rob has posted. But I can understand why Hornby Engineering is saying it can't be done.

I know others have mounted micro-sized sound decoders much smaller than the 8TXS. One who has also said they are having trouble fitting a stay-alive.

[Rallymatt]

I understand considerable amounts of the body have been ground away to create extra space, and it could so easily have gone wrong.

I noticed the green pcb Fishy and wondered if the power bank has been unpeeled and it’s part of the charging system, looks soldered on.

The full details should appear soon.

I can fully understand why Hornby have declined to try and do this. But Gen2 decoders are promised to be significantly smaller…. 😁

[96RAF]

I unpeeled a power bank early days but cannot remember what colour the PCB was, just that there were more components on there than I would have liked to be able to knock up a few cheap clones - not just resistors and capacitors but zenner and regular diodes and a transistor. For the hassle involved I will simply buy them.

[Peachy]

Ive just been messaged by the creator, Richard from the YouTube channel This Way Works. He’s supprised at the interest 😀

Check his channel out, you can see that he’s done all of this with an N gauge Bachmann

only this time I challenged him to get the HM7000 Bluetooth chip inside with the Hornby stay alive (which is an absolute game changer when it comes to keeping the Bluetooth connection alive with your device)

[Peachy]

BTW, the installation is not for the faint hearted 😬🤣

[Fishmanoz]

Ah, didn’t realise about the Power Bank PCB.

So thinking again and this time might be more correct:

• there seems to be room to mount the decoder on its side between the motor and the rear of the cab. It is the only space long and wide enough. Even room for plugs into the speaker and power bank sockets.
• with the heatshrink off the Power Bank, you can probably squeeze the wifi aerial end of the decoder next to it but it will be tight
• I think that chassis block and a plate at its base are held in by 2 screws. Haven’t tried taking them out yet to see what happens.
• the cab is a separate moulding glued to the body. So probably not too hard to get them apart. Still need to remove a separate part that fits around the chassis block then cut away the part of the moulding around it
• no problem for space for the speaker and a small enclosure then.
• definitely need to cut off the 8-pin plug and I’d still use a 6-pin header for pickup and motor connections. Probably keep directional light white and yellow to wire direct to the LEDs with resistors inline, similarly if you want other lights on green and/or purple. Maybe even a small narrow PCB to keep wiring/components neater.

Overall that seems more likely feasible than my first thoughts.

[Peachy]

Morning @Fishmanoz could you expand upon the green/purple lights please?

what are they for, where would they be and are a modern thing?

(please excuse my ignorance regarding more modern loco things)

[96RAF]

@Peachy it is not the lights that are green and purple it is the 8-pin decoder hardware function output wires that are green (HFO 3) and purple (HFO 4). These operate from the Aux lighting function buttons on page three of the decoder control screen.

[Peachy]

@Peachy it is not the lights that are green and purple it is the 8-pin decoder hardware function output wires that are green (HFO 3) and purple (HFO 4). These operate from the Aux lighting function buttons on page three of the decoder control screen.

 

 

Now I feel silly 😝🤦‍♂️

 

 

[Steve-353799]

Hey Peachy Man, love you. You crack me up! grinningjoysweat_smilelaughing

[ThisWayWorks]

Hi everyone, to put all the mystery to rest lol I’m going to upload a video either tonight or tomorrow which will hopefully explain things better (Still making the video). I do things a lot of people won’t or say can’t be done, mainly I have ground out some strategic parts of the loco to make everything actually fit in the loco, installed is the HM7000-TXS8, Hornby stay alive, Speaker, Flywheel, little people and a bunch of lights, hopefully I can weather it before I finish the video but will have to wait and see, it’s all a fairly tight fit and all I would say is if you do it you do it all at your own risk as it’s one of those jobs if you slip the body can be ruined, but it can be done and the results are fantastic with the stay alive 👍

[Peachy]

Hi everyone, to put all the mystery to rest lol I’m going to upload a video either tonight or tomorrow which will hopefully explain things better (Still making the video). I do things a lot of people won’t or say can’t be done, mainly I have ground out some strategic parts of the loco to make everything actually fit in the loco, installed is the HM7000-TXS8, Hornby stay alive, Speaker, Flywheel, little people and a bunch of lights, hopefully I can weather it before I finish the video but will have to wait and see, it’s all a fairly tight fit and all I would say is if you do it you do it all at your own risk as it’s one of those jobs if you slip the body can be ruined, but it can be done and the results are fantastic with the stay alive 👍

 

 

Yeah! welcome aboard matey!

[Mulsanne88]

Hello to thiswayworks

Can I ask how much you would charge to have the sound decoder, stay alive and lights fitted to an 08 as I am very keen to have this done

Cheers

Nigel

[Richard-358946]

Hello to thiswayworks

Can I ask how much you would charge to have the sound decoder, stay alive and lights fitted to an 08 as I am very keen to have this done

Cheers

Nigel

 

 

 

 

[Richard-358946]

Hi Nigel, i couldn't give you a price here im affraid as this is Hornbys forum so id be gone from here pretty sharpish and actually ive been so busy ive not been able to sit down and crunch the numbers yet either. What i would say is my video of how i did mine should be up Friday evening, and il hopefully be able to link the video here so then lets say at a later date you could maybe drop me an email chap 👍

[Richard-358946]

Heres the video, Mr Moderator please if this is not aloud please just let me know 👍

[Peachy]

Very impressive work. I love the cab light

[Fishmanoz]

Yes, impressive, and not as much fettling as I might have thought.

Richard, would you be amenable to posting your schematic here?

And just a couple of observations from my watching of the video:

• all wiring is point to point and soldered. There are no plugs or sockets used, including the plug is cut off the 8TXS cabling
• both power bank and speaker sockets removed from the decoder Richard, I wasn’t quite sure? Or maybe the speaker socket used but not the power bank?
• the internal width of the body is 12.4mm and the walls are 1.2mm thick giving you a total width of 14.8mm
• the width of the 8TXS decoder is 14.4mm so an amount of delicate internal grinding of the body with the Dremel is needed to get it to fit, noting it was mounted at a slight angle so giving you some leeway. Breaking through the body wall with the grinder is still a risk.
• hadn’t realised the cab clips to the body, not glued? Then you have to remove the black internal fitting with the existing cab detail. Not then sure about the extent of the grinding needed to fit the power bank without its heatshrink

And a couple of detail questions for Richard:

• just how have you connected the power bank electrically if you didn’t use the plug and socket? Or did you use it?
• you removed the front coupling but the rear one as well?
• are there any chassis mods (the block that protrudes into the cab)?
• what did you do with the clip over the top of the motor to secure it? There is clearly not enough height in the body to fit the decoder in the roof and leave it unmodified.
• did you use white/red directional lighting (should be clear from the schematic)? Or did you use yellow/white wires for the lower lights?

overall, very impressive.

[Richard-358946]

Hi Fishmanoz,

-The schematic il try and screenshot that from the video unless someone else beats me too it

- to maximise space available i tend to hardwire my decoders so yes i tend to cut plugs off. The 8 pin plug still actually thinking about it wouldnt of sufficed anyway as theres an extra wire id also need to use a plug on too, the purple aux wire...

- i removed the speaker and power module sockets from the pcb, again it was to give me any space i may need for install, this probably isnt necessary however i did it anyway, on the other side of this PCB there are solder pads for the speaker wires and power module that you can solder too, this is what i did.

- yes placing the decoder diagonally means less removal of material however its a balancing act as you need to make the decoder not touch the motor. I kept carefully grinding until the decoder was just not touching the motor. One slip and the body could be annialated so it requires a delicate touch here...

-The cab almost slightly unclips then you just lifts up and away off the body to expose the interior. My cab was not glued, the black firewall peice had two dots of superglue holding that in, it came off again quite easily.

-The power bank is just wired as it was stock, i should add there are tiny ID marks on the pcb for the power bank + and -, theres also ID marks on the decoder, c+ and c- (solder pads on opposite side of removed power bank socket.

- The couplings i removed, no real reason other then i forgot to put them back in

- chassis mods... The only chassis mod was removing the chunk of metal which protrudes up where the cab meets the body.. it was in the way of the power bank and served no purpose for me, thats why i showed that area in the video. Tbh i need to almost annotate the video really so its more clear

- the clip over the motor is not used, i didnt need its weight or function. The motor is superglued down, if the motor fails il tap the motor and because superglue is brittle the motor will release for me, for its lifetime it wont ever move out of its recess.

-The Yellow wire and White wire are used for directional lights (lights on bufferbeam),

- The Cab light is the green wire

- Floodlights at the front and rear are wired in parellel to the purple wire

[Richard-358946]

The way ive done this is non "consumor quality" it was a make it happen type build for my layout so theres definitely areas which i think could be improved but at the very least it gives hope to us mere mortals that fitting these chips is possible if you willing to take the risk and like tiny soldering 😅

The NXT18 version as far as i can tell is the same PCB as the 8TXS. It may be beneficial just to use the NXT18 version and just solder your wires to it vs using the 8TXS like i have and removing the speaker and power module sockets(i probably didnt even need to do this). My 8TXS even says NXT18 on it next to where the NXT 18 socket would go!

Another point i want to highlight is you may be able to get a 9 pin micro plug or somehow find a hole in the loco somewhere for the existing 8 pin plug but plugs are points of failure and waste space. If the decoder doesent break i have no reason to remove it. If my 8TXS breaks il put my TTS chip in the lil bugga 🤣 oldschool for the win👍

Hopefully ive answered many questions for you all, if you have any other queries ask away👍

[Richard-358946]

Very impressive work. I love the cab light

 

 

Cheers Peachy👍

 

 

I think for the BR Blue it should probably be more amber i suspect. Im almost scared to open it back up now to remedy it 🤣